THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLISHING “HIDDEN EARTH CHRONICLES, BOOK 2” (UPDATED)

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

UPDATED 4:41 PM–Okay. Because a lot of fans on various sites were disappointed having to wait another month, we’ve decided not to go with B&N exclusively and instead are releasing it on Amazon simultaneously. Here you go. Paperback should be available next week.


For years, people have been asking me, “Where’s Book 2 of ‘The Hidden Earth?”

I had no ready answer. I had turned in the contracted manuscript years earlier, and it simply languished, untouched, on someone’s desk.

They had eighteen months to publish it, and after all that time, we’d reached the promised pub date and it had not even entered the production system. And I said, “This is not how you treat authors. This is not how you do business.” (And believe me, I wasn’t the only author in that situation. I encountered quite a few bemoaning their manuscript being in limbo.)

So when Mike Friedman suggested that a group of us take our destinies in our own hands and form Crazy 8 Press, this was the book that prompted me to join up.

I basically torched my relationship with that publisher–and quite possibly crippled my career, because book publishers don’t like troublemakers–to get back this book and the one before it (which was out of print). So that people could read it.

Book 1, “Darkness of the Light,” is on both Amazon and B&N. Book 2 is out right now for the Nook and will be out on Amazon and in paperback next month.

You can order “Heights of the Depths” here.

Please help send a pro-author message to certain publishers by supporting this and other endeavors at Crazy 8 Press. Thank you for your attention.

PAD

PS–I’ve noticed that no matter what format we put something out with, people immediately say, “Oh, I don’t have that; can you put it out in (fill in the blank).” Yeah, not this time. Nook (and Kindle, for that matter) have made it so dámņëd easy to have their platform available that you’re out of E-xcuses. To get the Nook app for just about anything electronic you’ve got, go here.

61 comments on “THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLISHING “HIDDEN EARTH CHRONICLES, BOOK 2” (UPDATED)”

      1. .
        No, he’s not. But he can download the Nook app for PC.
        .
        http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/NOOK-Free-Reading-Apps-Technical/Nook-Apps-and-Canada/td-p/786382
        .
        I can’t wrap my head around some of this stuff either. I was surprised to learn that you can’t see the same movies on Netflix streaming in Canada that you can see in the US. Hëll, I was surprised when I learned that you couldn’t stream Netflix in some other countries at all.
        .
        The World Wide Web contained by geographical borders.

      2. I’m not doing this to bust your chops PAD, but yeah Barnes and Noble does not exist in Canada so they didn’t license their app for outside the US.

        It used to be compatible with Kobo, but B&N decided to change that.

        So my options are, wait 30 days for it to come out in Kindle/paperback (which I don’t have but I at least can dl the app for it. It’s a little annoying not to be able to keep all my books in one app, but whatever)

        Read on the computer but considering that 95% of my reading is either done on the bus or in bed seems kinda pointless.

        Buy it from Barnes and Noble (assuming they even let me pay with a Canadian Credit card I’ve never bought from there have no idea* and judging from the link Jerry posted they won’t ship to Canada so who knows)
        look for a way to break the DRM so I can read it on the device I have. (A quick google check says that doing so isn’t illegal in the US or Canada as long as I don’t share the file)

        *Don’t assume just because it’s an online store you can pay wherever I tried buying a gift card from Sephora for a friend in the US and they wouldn’t accept a non US based credit card.

        Jerry you’d be surprised at what gets region blocked. Hulu’s unavailable, which is okay for some things because a lot of US shows are available through Canadian websites. The worst is promotional materials, the first month I think of the teaser/in production videos for Game of thrones season 2 was unwatchable outside the US. Heck I still can’t see half the interviews posted by the official Game of Thrones twitter feed. This is all despite the fact I can watch Game of thrones Sunday night just like everyone in the US.

      3. My favored way of doing things is to strip the DRM off the book I bought (I use DeDRM, which has versions for Windows and MacOSX).
        .
        Some folks may have qualms about that, but I don’t. I bought it, anything I do with it that stays within my household is fine.
        .
        YMMV

  3. Nice! I was about to ask if it was possible to read E-books on a PC. I still prefer a physical book to electronic, but I’ll be darned if I miss out on work by great writers moving into digital distribution.

    1. I appreciate that. Although I will emphasize that the paperback edition should be available in a week or so.
      .
      PAD

  4. I could believe that you torched your relationship with that editor. But the publisher as a whole, or even the industry? That… seems incredibly broken to me.
    .
    Though given traditional publishing’s reaction to ebooks, “incredibly broken” fits perfectly.

  5. Peter, this a bit of a non-sequitur, but you’ve just made me curious: can a publisher theoretically keep a book on their shelf indefinitely, or is there a contractual period of time in which it has to be published? If publisher A for example, wasn’t all that enthusiastic about a book, but they wanted to keep it out of the hands of publisher B, could they tie it up until nobody was interested any longer? I’ve been lucky in that most of my books have been published in a timely manner, but on one occasion I was given a check when the publisher decided not to go ahead with a project, and on another, I was completely paid off even after that publisher decided not to publish a book I’d written (after the movie in question bombed). I guess I’ve been lucky that I never had a book held hostage, so I was curious what, if any steps a writer can take under those circumstances.

    1. Could they keep it in print JUST to keep it away from someone else? I guess, sure. But it seems an absurd way to do business. And most contracts come with a minimal number of copies that they have to sell in order to maintain the pub rights.
      .
      PAD

      1. But not entirely unheard of either. Sometimes a book is kept in print because a movie deal may be pending, so they want to hold onto the rights. I can think of a few licenses and contracts that were renewed just on the hint of movie money.

      2. But they still can’t keep it in print just for the sake of keeping it in print; there has to be a minimal number of copies sold. Granted, they could lie about the number of books they’re selling, I suppose…
        .
        PAD

      3. PAD, I think you misunderstood the original question as an example of the Alan Moore/Watchmen issue. I think what he was asking was, “can a publisher buy the rights to a book, then simply keep the rights and not publish it indefinitely?” That way, the book never gets published.

      4. Any publishing contract should come with a drop dead point by which time the book is automatically reverted if it doesn’t see print.
        .
        The only way to circumvent it is that typically the manuscript has to be accepted by the publisher and deemed “publishable.” The sole discretion of what determines that is the publisher himself. So the clock doesn’t start ticking until the publisher actually accepts the book, i.e., issues the on-acceptance check. So I suppose the publisher could just keep saying, “It’s still not good enough” for a really long time.
        .
        PAD

    1. The life of self-publishing, folks. This is all obviously not one person, but getting people on board is like trying to pick up mercury with tweezers. To wit:
      .
      “My new book is available in the bookstores!”
      .
      I don’t go to bookstores anymore; I just read eBooks.”
      .
      “My new book is available as an eBook for the Nook.”
      .
      I only have the Kindle.
      .
      “It’s now on Amazon.”
      .
      Ebooks are so expensive these days.
      .
      “It’s under five bucks.”
      .
      I’m too busy.
      .
      “Sigh.”
      .
      Hey, PAD! I hear you have a new book out!
      .
      “Yes! Yes, I do!”
      .
      I’ve gone to all the bookstores in my area and can’t find it.
      .
      PAD

  7. Just ordered the paperback and e-book versions of book 1 from amazon. If I pay $18 for the paperback giving and extra 3 bucks for the digital version is a no brainer to me. I prefer the paperback but when I am waiting at the doctor’s office the ability to take out my phone and continue reading is worth the extra $3. I read most of The Camelot Papers on my Iphone and/or Ipad last week on the flights to and from Orlando.

    By the way, thanks to Mrs. David for her Disney’s suggestions on her “open-question” thread. The Cristal Palace was a big hit with my son. He loves Pooh so we celebrated his birthday there and he had a blast.

  8. I just went to Amazon. Trying every search i could think of, it says it never heard of either you or your books…

    1. On Amazon go to Kindle Store and search for “Hidden Earth Chronicles”. Book one (the only one available at the moment) should be the first result. If you click on it it shows you options for “available formats” from click “paperback” if you want the printed copy. Is listed for $17.99. The kindle version is $2.99.

      1. Did for me when i did it just now before i came here. Must have been some glitch. I tried searching on both his name and on book titles the first time.

    3. When a book first goes up from an independent, it takes Amazon’s search engine a few weeks to be able to locate it.
      .
      Which is why I provided handy links that would bring you right to it.
      .
      PAD

      1. Except that i was looking for used copies of the previous book to see which publisher it was.
        .
        Interesting; the editorial people i know there don’t seem like the sort who’d allow the scenario you experienced.
        .
        Of course, you may not have been working with the ones i know.

  9. Because a lot of fans on various sites were disappointed having to wait another month, we’ve decided not to go with B&N exclusively and instead are releasing it on Amazon simultaneously
    .
    Demand and supply! It works! 😉

  10. “…quite possibly crippled my career, because book publishers don’t like troublemakers…”

    Not necessarily — I mean, ‘troublemakers’ like Harlan Ellison and Piers Anthony haven’t done too shabbily… 🙂

    But seriously, after reading the blogs of folks like Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Dean Wesley Smith, and getting a sense of exactly what a clueless dinosaur the world of traditional publishing has become, a setup like Crazy 8 seems like the only rational move for *any* author at this point.

  11. The Amazon link takes me to Book 2’s Amazon purchase page but doesn’t allow me to actually purchase saying that pricing information is not available. I haven’t been able to bring it up from my Kindle itself.

    I have been eagerly awaiting this sequel for a long time, my father and I really enjoyed the first one and he always would ask me when the next one was coming out. Sadly, he passed away almost two years ago. Reading this will be bittersweet for me but honestly, I can’t wait. I’ll keep checking the link tonight and thank you for not having me wait a month longer to read it, PAD.

      1. Seconded – I just bought book 2, following Peter’s handy link.

        And echoing the thanks. Not that I’m likely to read book 2 within the next month – but I have been able to start the payment for it going in your general direction.

      2. Yep, it’s fixed! I’m going to purchase it before I go to bed tonight. I do have a question though…would it be a good idea to re-read book one or does book 2 bring us up to speed on most of the goings-on?

  12. I’m sorry to be awkward (honestly), but the Nook app is only useful on computers or smartphones that can run apps. It’s no good for the Sony Reader (and similar devices), which needs epub files. I don’t know how many people are in the same situation as me, so catering to us may be more trouble than it’s worth, and I realise that you’ve already said that you won’t offer any other formats. Just out of curiousity, would it be a major undertaking to offer epub files as well?

    1. Since the Nook files are all DRM protected epubs, you could do what Roger Tang suggested above and use DeDRM or something similar to strip the DRM and then sideload the book to your Sony Reader.

    2. The main issue with doing epub versions only is that we’d have to set up someplace to sell it– either through Sony’s system or set up e-commerce on our own end.

      Which is something we’re considering, but we do have limited resources. We have to weigh the time and expense of setting up e-commerce on our end against the number of copies we think we’d sell in that format. If we’re only going to sell fifty copies at $2.99 a book, after we clear credit card expenses and the like, it gets tough to justify.

    3. The Nook books are epubs, and in the case of Heights of the Depths (as well as earlier Crazy 8 efforts, if I remember correctly) are DRM-free.
      .
      They’re not particularly *good* epubs (it looks like they were exported from Word to HTML then assembled, and there’s a lot of leftover unnecessary crap in the HTML code), but they should work on your Sony reader.

      1. Yeah yeah we know. Only so many hours in the day, and bandwidth is cheap. (And I wish it was as simple as just Word to HTML, etc. Each book brings its own surprises.)

  13. Don’t know about US prices but that’s £3.27 on the UK store which is ridiculously cheap for a new title. At that price I’ll just buy it even if I won’t get to reading it for a few months.

    Note – if you’re in the UK you can just change the .com to .co.uk to get the UK store version. May work for other territories too, handy if the search isn’t working yet.

    1. I just bought it in Amazon Spain and, indeed, the 3.68€ price tag puts it in the no brainier category. Thanks for that.

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  15. Hey John,

    The ePub format has become the industry standard and is what is used by the Nook and the Sony Reader. We don’t need to offer more than ePub, Kindle, and Print on Demand to Crazy 8 Press readers. You should be able to order and enjoy the Hidden Earth without problem. If II am in error, let me know. Peter could use fewer excuses and more sales.

    Bob

    1. Bob – you’re right about those formats being enough, but I don’t think that B&N allows international sales. So while they sell the epub version, the market is rather limited.

    2. Thanks, that’s useful to know: as I understand it, the Nook supports epub files, but it also supports other formats (e.g. pdf), so not all Nook data files will work on other platforms. If this book is being sold as an epub already, that’s perfect. Unfortunately, as Andrew Timson mentioned, Barnes & Noble won’t sell it to me because I live in the UK rather than the USA.

    2. The second book is now available in paperback format Jay. I noticed it today and just ordered mine. It had a release date of March 2, 2012.

  17. “And believe me, I wasn’t the only author in that situation. I encountered quite a few bemoaning their manuscript being in limbo”

    Hanging around several forums (SFFWorld, Westeros), I’ve learned over the past year that this indeed seems the case and its very unfortunate. Regardless of the reasons behind it, the steam an author builds up with a book or two in launching a series can really be hindered.

    I’m just glad to see the second book being published, I really enjoyed the first.

  18. .
    Screw it. I already have the first book in hardback, but at the price you’re offering I figured I can do my part to support the creators who are trying to give us the stories we want to read and who are trying to get around the publishing system that’s trying to tell the creators and the fans what the publishers “know” the fans want.
    .
    Just grabbed both of them off of Amazon.

  19. So, when does book three come out? I’m excited for the conclusion and have been eagerly waiting. As these books kick ášš, I’ve already finished Heights of the Depths.

    1. yes when is book three coming out? really enjoyed the first two and i’m looking forward to the third

  20. Dammit, Camelot Papers *and* this (and actually, also book 1, which I’ve never read)… man, I really need to get off my butt and get my Kindle fixed!

  21. Okay, so I’m two thirds through Heights of the Depths and I have a (maybe) silly question to ask. Have all 12 races been shown or spoke about as of yet?

    I keep counting only 11, with a couple of animals that wouldn’t count as a Race.

    Am I missing one that was mentioned before or has one been intentionally left out?

    1. The latter. They’ll be turning up in the last book. All the others settled in various parts of Europe. The remaining are in the western part of the US.
      .
      PAD

  22. Well, best of luck with the book two launch Peter! I’ll have to think about picking up the paperback. I’m a little bit irritated with Kobo for being unfriendly to you guys… I’d much rather get it in epub. (I love books, but they’re taking up way too much space in my smallish-sized condo…)

  24. So, I just got an e-mail from B&N telling me that my pre-order for a paperback copy that was supposed to ship yesterday had been canceled. Now I look at B&N.com and it’s only showing it exists as an e-book. Is this just a delay in availability? Or should I start deciding if I’d rather order the paperback from Amazon or get the Nook Book, which I can’t put on the bookshelf next to my original paperback edition of The Darkness of the Light?

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